Johns Trippin'

We didn't know what we were doing when we started. That's not entirely unique in this lifestyle, but most people spend some time planning things and learning about RVs. We didn't have that luxury due to the compressed timeframe when our house sold. That said, would we do anything differently if we could do it again? Yeah, we would. Would I term those "regrets?" Nah, not really. That implies that I'm dwelling on these things, and I'm not. So while we don't regret the decisions we made, here are a few things we'd do differently if we could start over: We would have gotten a Costco credit card a lot earlier than we did, which was more than halfway through our trip. We bought a lot of gas, so we might as well have been getting rewarded for it. We would have signed up for Thousand Trails. We heard all kinds of mixed reviews on the program, but we're confident we could have saved money on campgrounds had we signed up early on. Julie would have put th...

We are now settled in at a campground in North Georgia for the next 3 months. The plan is to use this as our home base while we search for a permanent place to live. Whether that will be a plot of land upon which we build or an already built house, we don't know yet. Before this trip started, I was pretty confident we were going to build when we were done, but I've had a lot of time over the last 22 months to think about it, and now I'm less certain. Regardless of whether we build or buy, our first job is to narrow in on a location. We know we want to be near family, many of whom are in north Atlanta, but we also know that we don't want to live too close to the city. That likely puts us between Gainesville and the South Carolina line. We want to start by finding a good church. Our kids are either at or approaching youth group age, and youth group was such an important part of Julie's and my childhood that we want our kids to have the same opportunities we did. It...

We moved our stuff from Sophia's house to Nana & Gramps's house. Aunt Alaina, uncle Marc, Sophia, and Nathan Lay came over. And uncle Steve & aunt Hannah came over. We all had a great big brunch with all 13 of us! Then we went into the family room and I read the Christmas story! Then we opened presents!!! I got a bunny brush, slingshot, books from the series Kings and Sorcerers, a beautiful quilt that Nana made, and lots of Velcro that I use a lot for crafts. Asher got a robot and some Wings of Fire books. Caleb got a mini drone, Gravitrax expansion pack, and Nintendo Switch controller holders. Then we played with the kids next door, Andrew and Ava. I played a lot with Sophia that afternoon. Then the Lay family left. The next day, Monday, We did school at Nana and Gramps's house which I did not understand, to me this was supposed to be a vacation!!! We did grammar with Nana it was great! We went to see aunt Hannah and uncle Steve's new house! It was really nice....